Its been a long long time since I heard Sri Vijay Siva live and I didn’t want to miss this opportunity to hear him at Raga Sudha Hall. In addition, Sri Palghat Raghu was playing for him and in the past 2 months, I have at least gone to 3 concerts where he was supposed to play, only to come to know that he couldn’t make it to the concerts as he was unwell. It was a big relief for me when I saw Sri Raghu walk in to the hall for this concert.

Coming to the concert, Sri Vijay Siva sang superbly with his trademark clarity of diction. The tODi raga alapana was the show stealer. Sri Chandramouli played well though he didn’t seem to be in his peak form today. Sri Palghat Raghu was as usual superb and Sri Abhishek Raghuram on the khanjira supported him very well. Sri Abhishek Raghuram also played very well during the taniavartanam, especially during the kuraippu. Playing along with his grandfather Sri Raghu must anyway be nothing new to him, having performed in many such concerts in the past.

4 thoughts on “N Vijay Siva @ Raga Sudha Hall, Chennai”

Neraval refers to singing a particular phrase/line from a song multiple times using one’s imagination to make forays into the raga on which the line is based while still coming back to the basic tune of the phrase at the end of it. It usually involves a lot of improvisation.

Given this, if it is a vocal performance, even if you don’t know the song, you can figure out when a neraval is being done by seeing if a line of the song is being repeated multiple times with the artist kind of deviating from the basic tune of the line to bring in the beauty of the raga more using his improvisations. (This is where I feel the neraval differs from singing “sangatis” which is more of building up with the basic tune kept intact). Another means to figure it out for a person new to carnatic music is when the vocalist and violinist/accompanying instrumentalist take turns at singing/playing a line of a song while the vocalist is still singing the lyrics.

If it is an instrumental performance, it is slightly difficult. The trick again is to see if the same line is being repeated and still improvisations are being made by changing the basic tune somewhat while still maintaining the raga. In the case of an instrumental performance, it is difficult sometimes for people who are new to carnatic music to figure out if neraval is going on or kalpana swaram is going on. But if one tries to listen to what is being played for some time keeping in mind what a “neraval” means, one should be able to figure out whether what is being done is a neraval or not.